Many against one
by The cursed child
Summary: Years of penance can't be erased. Sometimes, they are stronger than the evil that originally was. Mara doesn't have a chance against the memories of Lexie, Audrey, Lucy and Sarah. Duke just needs to be there to make her remember that.


Their first rescue plan (and their last), concocted by Nathan, fails miserably. Nobody but Nathan expected anything different, so why they went along with the love-sick cop is still a mystery. It is desperation, probably. Duke is dying. Besides the bleeding, he is also collapsing and losing consciousness every few hours. When he does, the life gets sucked out of the surrounding area. Like the original version of Audrey said, he is as good as dead.

Mara has only been around for a week, and as far as they know, hasn't done any damage yet. With the only person that can open de door dead, she commandeered a quite luxurious cabin in the forest that surrounds Haven. To the knowledge of Audrey's friends, Mara is trying to find a way to bring her lover back to her. She has raided Vince and Dave's houses in search of another child from her world to reopen the portal. As she has exactly the same information they spent hours upon hours dissecting, they are secure in the knowledge that she is wasting her time.

They know she knows they know where she is. Mara is not attempting to hide. The witch is powerful enough to bring the whole team to their knees with her collection of troubles. As it is, her 'rescuers' are the saddest bunch she's ever met.

Audrey's lover is blinded by his broken heart and his hate for Mara. At the same time, he can't hurt her because he hopes Audrey is still a part of her. He kept trying to make her remember her false memories when she first got her body back.

The Teagues brothers are a joke. Neither of them has one of her Troubles. Dave Teague is dead afraid of her, and didn't dare to come close when she went for a stroll through the small town. He knows what is behind the door, and it paralyzes him. Vince is slightly more dangerous with his guard behind him, but none of them want a morphed or new Trouble, so they stay out of her way. The snipers are always in the corner of her eye, but they still won't shoot. It is uncertainty. The Troubled want to kill her, but she is the only one who knows how to end the troubles. If her death will bring peace to Haven, she and William are the only ones that know. It is too big a risk to take.

The Chief of the town seems to be okay with leaving her alone as long as she doesn't do anything. He hates her, and he probably has his reasons, but she really couldn't care less if he stays out of her way.

Duke Crocker, he is the most important, and could very well be the most dangerous, ignoring the fact that he is being tortured by his own powers.

This is why she hasn't done anything to him yet. When the group stormed her temporary home with the plan to capture her, she knocked them all out. Crocker is still on his feet somehow, and that makes her admittedly nervous. There is no way to tell what all those absorbed Troubles have morphed into, and if he is immune to her, there is a whole new slew of problems she hadn't counted on.

Crocker is just standing there, seemingly unconcerned with his friends on the ground. His girlfriend is dead, so is his brother, his best friend doesn't know she is, and he knows very well that he is dying. His body aches and blood is still pooling in his mouth from when he last tried to hack up a lung.

They are at a standstill; her powers don't work on him, and he is too sick to move from where he stands. Not that he is going to try. He loves her too much to kill her, and imprisoning her is not helping anyone, no matter what Nathan thinks. He is here just so he can see her one last time before he dies. She's all he has left, no matter if she calls herself Audrey or Mara.

Nathan is blind. He can't see that Mara and Audrey are the same. He wouldn't be surprised if Mara can do things she never learned, like Audrey can play the piano. She probably still likes his waffles and the pancake special at the Gull. Even the darkness that is so clear in Mara was hidden in Audrey. He saw glimpses of it every so often, knows how to recognize that particular look from his travels and experience. Experience had made Audrey wiser, has taught her that helping is so much more rewarding than the rush of power that accompanies the distribution of a Trouble.

You can change someone's memories, strip them of their identity, give them a new life and new friends, and they will still be just as stubborn, as loving, and as intuitive as they always were.

"The Crocker Curse was mine, you know?" Mara breaks the silence. "I gave it to your ancestor. He was the most annoyingly good person I've ever met. He spent his life trying to stop William and me, so I gave him a way to do so."

She watches for a reaction, but Duke just keeps looking at her, waiting for the curse to take him. He knows it will be soon, and Audrey is the last thing he wants to see as he dies. He drinks up the sight of her. Her soft features, smooth skin, the new hair color of her silky locks, the pale lips he once kissed, the eyes that are still warm and unchanging.

"You are a lot like him. I told everyone that he could cure them, and they lined up in front of his door, begging for death." A laugh escapes her at the memory. "You reacted just like him when they tried to commit suicide by Crocker. That exact same look on your face." Mara wants to go further, wants this man, this threat, to lose his composure. She doesn't expect the corner of his mouth to rise up in a small grin.

"What?" she asks impatiently.

Duke's smile grows wider. "You remember," he croaks out, his throat raw from his coughing fits. He looks at her like she is adorable as confusion clouds her face.

"You have Audrey's memories," he says, voice growing stronger with every word. "Lucy's too, and Sarah's. All of them?" She nods in agreement, curious as to where he is going with this. After all, in a few minutes he won't be a threat at all. "I can access the memories I need."

"Kill me." It is more of a question than an order, but none the less she reaches forward to grab the hunting knife Duke offers.

There is a question in her eyes as she looks at the dying man. "Why?"

His smile has faded by now, a certain seriousness set in his features. "Those memories might be dormant now, but you have decades, if not centuries of them. Centuries of doing everything you can to help the Troubles and stop them forever. Somewhere, there are memories of all the friends you made, all the men you loved, of the child you gave birth to and gave up to protect something much bigger than yourself. One day, Mara, those memories will remind you that there is nothing more important than keeping everyone you ever loved safe."

His strength is waning. His voice becomes scratchy as his Curse shuts down his body. "I don't care if it will be today or a decade from now. All that matters is that it will."

"And you don't want to be there when it happens?"

Duke snorts, which starts another coughing fit. Wiping the blood away from his mouth, he answers:

"Audrey loves me, you know it and I know it." It is the first time he feels confident in saying that. She might have chosen Nathan, but her feelings for him had not disappeared, they all knew that, it went unspoken. Love like that doesn't fade in a few months.

"Like it or not, Mara, you are Audrey as much as she is you. If you kill me, I'm proven wrong, but I don't think I am."

He is baiting her now, time is running out. If there is one thing this woman, no matter her name, cannot resist, it is a challenge.

"And if you can't, I can die knowing that the world isn't doomed."

Her fingers stroke the side of Duke's blade. Despite her resolution to hate him, she cannot help but like Duke Crocker. His spirit, his courage and his intelligence are admirable. The memories of him she has unearthed from the recess of her mind tell her enough about him to remind her that Duke Crocker is a man she could love. The feelings that accompany every memory are stuck in her heart, and she loves him a little bit already.

They can both feel him slipping away now. He falls to the ground, his knees giving out. It is wrong to see such a strong and proud man below her. She tilts her head, studying her little dilemma.

She kneels beside him. Her hand rests under his chin and tilts his head up to find his defiant eyes and lock them with hers. The point of the blade is aligned with his heart.

"One last memory," Duke rasps, his hand wrapped around the wrist below his chin. "We said goodbye before, remember?"

Without her permission, her control slips on the memories that are locked behind a wall in her mind. She remembers the barn, her forehead touching Duke's as they say goodbye, her whisper about Colorado. A rush of memories accompanies the mention of the state. Duke and Audrey are on a bed in a hotel room, talking quietly, laughing, and a feeling of happiness replacing confusion. The mood shifts, a moment of tension before she kisses him, trying to convey how much she has grown to love him. They are in an interrogation room, Claire the psychiatrist beside her as he recounts their kiss, complete devotion in his eyes. Her own longing and embarrassment keep her from fully enjoying it. Her own fear as he lies dying in the middle of the road, relief as the day repeats itself and she can hug him again.

The significant memories are replaced by the stupidest moments; their first meeting, a midnight talk above the Gull, a look of complete trust when nobody else can see it, a look of betrayal as she asks him to kill a man. The pain Audrey caused him when she chose Nathan, even though he had Jennifer for a while. The disappointment as she refuses to save them all by killing Nathan. Stupid jokes he told, scenes of bonding and teasing.

The knifepoint angles away from the body of her almost lover. In a moment of weakness, overwhelmed by a year of emotions, she places their entwined hands on his heart, and breathes in. A black ball materializes in her palm while his pain disappears almost instantly. She cured him.

She looks him in the eye. Barely a month's worth of Audrey's memories was enough to almost wipe Mara of the map. It was almost enough to banish Mara behind the wall where Lucy and Sarah wait as well.

The woman looks at Duke, suddenly insecure and docile, so unlike the strong and proud aura of both Mara and Audrey. There is an unspoken question in her eyes that only he can answer.

"You are the same woman, just remember that."

She closes her eyes and breathes. Opening them up again reveals a look that only Audrey has ever given him.

A big grin appears on her face.

"Do you remember Colorado?"


End file.
